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Chapter 172
On the Shores of Lake Akan (阿寒冽のほとり, Akan Kiyoshi no Hotori) is the 172nd chapter of the Golden Kamuy manga. Synopsis As Kadokura and Kirawus heads out to find Hijikata and Ushiyama, Kirawus mentions that the two men had gone out to find the prisoner hiding in the Lake Akan area and wonders if the prisoner had gotten the both of them. Kadokura scoffs at this suggestion but admits that while the prisoner cannot fight, he is a very crafty person. Kirawus asks if he knew him, and Kadokura says that he knows him better by his anus than his face. Kadokura talks about Waichirou Sekiya, a former livestock veterinarian that looked after horses in various ranches before being sent to jail for poisoning 30 people. In prison, Kadokura decided to test him by putting poison in one of the miso for his cell group and found one of the prisoners dead as Sekiya recounts his last moment. Another prisoner, Wakayama gets furious with Sekiya but he says that since Wakayama is a yakuza boss, it is no wonder that luck is on his side. Sekiya then admits that watching someone's fortune play out is something that he enjoys, and as such he has killed numerous people who just so happens to have terrible luck. Kadokura tells Kirawus that when Sekiya was outside of the prison doing labour, he had snuck an aconite plant inside with him and as a result, Kadokura had to check him everytime he went outside for labour, including inside his anus. Hearing this, Kirawus laughs at Kadokura and says that the poison from the aconite would have done some bodily harm to Sekiya so it would've been impossible for him to hide the plant inside his butt. As the duo crosses the frozen lake of Akan, Kirawus asks the various Ainu fishers if they had seen Hijikata and Ushiyama, but got a negative from them. Kadokura approaches one of the fishers and asks if he had acquired some fishes and finds that he managed to obtain some pond smelt. Kadokura calls out to Kirawus about some more Ainu in another area but Kirawus tells him not to order him around. Kadokura then sees a young boy skating nearby and begins to describe Hijikata's appearance, asking if he had seen him but the boy ignores him and asks what Kadokura thinks of his skating performance. Uninterested, Kadokura begins to leave but the boy tells him that he saw Hijikata standing in Lake Akan yesterday and Kadokura notices a silkworm cocoon on the frozen lake. A flashback occurs where Sekiya demands that Hijikata eats one of the cocoons laying around and that if he manages to pick one that does not have poison in it, he will let Ushiyama go. Hijikata states that he has no intention of playing along with Sekiya's games and that he will come after him before noting that Sekiya could easily run away with a horse. Sekiya tells Hijikata that Ushiyama had eaten some pufferfish poison, which rendered him unable to move, and that he has buried him in a casket. Even though there are airholes in the casket, Ushiyama has no source of water and Sekiya warns Hijikata that he would have no time to chase after him. Hijikata says that he already has a copy of Ushiyama's tattoo but Sekiya tells him that Ushiyama willingly drank the poison when he had lied to him about kidnapping Hijikata. Sekiya then tells Hijikata to test his fortune which he complies consuming one of the cocoons. The cocoon that Hijikata had eaten turned out to be a poisonous one as Hijikata falls unconscious to the frozen lake and Sekiya steps out, noting that every pellet had a fatal does of poison while expressing amazement that Hijikata survived. Noting that Hijikata's allies would soon show up, he decides to take his body elsewhere to hide it but notices a boy skating on the lake nearby. Kadokura attempts to examine the cocoon but quickly gives up. The fisher that Kadokura had approached earlier begins to speak to Kirawus and gives him some of his pond smelt. Kirawus says that the fisher won't be able to catch that many fishes at this time and wonders if he is not from around here, unaware that he is speaking to Sekiya himself. As Kirawus begins to give the smelt to Kadokura, Sekiya muses that he put some powerful dose of tetrodotoxin into the fishes and wonders how good Kadokura's luck is. As Kadokura walks on the frozen lake, he slips and drops the smelts he obtained from Kirawus, with all of them sliding back into the water underneath the ice. Kirawus is shocked that every one of them had fallen into the holes and Kadokura tells Kirawus that he has always had bad luck since he was a child, crediting it to the star that he was born under. Elsewhere, Ushiyama wakes from his slumber and heads out to find his companions. Character Appearances *Asirpa (cover) *Kirawus *Kadokura *Waichirou Sekiya (debut) *Kiichirou Wakayama (flashback) *Skating Boy (debut) *Toshizou Hijikata (flashback) *Tatsuma Ushiyama Category:Chapters